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In Algiers, Ben Bella called an emergency Cabinet meeting, fired Colonel Ou el Hadj, denounced Aït Ahmed and his party as "tools of imperialism." To unite the country, the Algerian leader suddenly charged that Morocco had massed troops "ten meters from the Algerian frontier"—an accusation for which there was little evidence, despite some recent border incidents.
Then, going before a rally of 100,000 hysterical supporters trucked into the Forum, Algiers' main square, Ben Bella shouted hotly: "There are those who say I am a dictator, but dictatorship is ... personified by Mussolini and Trujillo . . . Ben Bella hates the rich and loves the poor." To prove it, he announced: "From this minute on, every inch of French-owned land in Algeria belongs to the people"—thus confiscating the last remaining 2,500,000 acres still tilled by the fast-dwindling French colony. Formalizing his dictatorial rule, Ben Bella called Parliament into session, assumed "full powers" under his constitution.
Mist in the Trees. Militarily, things settled into an Alphonse-Gaston opéra bouffe. Coolly refraining from an all-out attack on the insurgents, Ben Bella vowed that "no blood will flow," and Colonel Ou el Hadj said that he certainly would not be the first to shoot. Only one clash was reported all week; Ou el Hadj claimed that government forces wounded one of his men north of Tizi-Ouzou. When five jeeploads of government troops rolled into Tizi-Ouzou, Ou el Hadj and Aït Ahmed politely decamped to Michelet, where they were just as politely left alone, and opposing troops lighted one another's cigarettes. Rebel strength numbered no more than 2,000, if that many. To TIME Correspondent James Wilde, the dissident colonel eloquently denied reports that his men were digging in. "Guerrillas do not dig in," he said. "They move about like clouds over the mountains and disappear, like mist, into the trees." At his side, co-Rebel Aït Ahmed, clad in jacket and casual pullover, awkwardly cradled a submachine gun.
At week's end Ben Bella moved shrewdly to end the ridiculous stalemate and even turn it to his advantage. He appointed as chief of staff Commander Takar Zbiri, an old guerrilla buddy of Colonel Ou el Hadj who has also been feuding with Army Chief Boumedienne. The move was designed to pacify Ou el Hadj, in hopes of persuading him to desert Aït Ahmed. But since Boumedienne has been occupying the chief-of-staff post himself, the action also had the effect of downgrading the army boss, long rated as Ben Bella's last potential rival, who was in Moscow negotiating details of a $100 million Soviet loan. Then, with another mission off to Morocco to ease tension along the border, Ben Bella settled back to see if the rebels could do more than drift over the mountains and disappear, like mist, into the trees.